Saturday, August 30, 2008

From its first day in office, Stephen Harper’s government has been one of questionable legitimacy.

The Conservatives made two massive, vote-buying promises in the last campaign which they quickly dishonoured. One was never to tax Income Trusts. The other was to pay Saskatchewan $800 million more every year in Equalization.

Their position is further eroded by the serious legal questions which have been raised by the Chief Electoral Officer about a Conservative election financing scam in the last campaign.

Respected, independent election officials are investigating whether campaign spending limits were violated at the national level, while illegitimate reimbursement claims were filed locally.

On top of that, the Conservatives benefited shamelessly from the extraordinary and inexplicable involvement of the RCMP in the last campaign. Every credible independent observer says this incident in the midst of the last election had a huge and totally improper impact.

Two and a half years later, Stephen Harper now wants a snap election – in violation of his promise of a fixed election date in October of 2009.

The illegitimate Conservative behaviour continues.

What has the Harper government so panicked that they are prepared to break their word to Canadians – yet again – and even break the spirit of the fixed-election-date law which they, themselves, enacted?

They’re spooked by at least three things on the horizon, which don’t look good for Mr. Harper.

First, the Conservatives will lose all four of the federal byelections called for September.

Secondly, the national economy is getting into deeper trouble, and the responsibility will rest squarely on Mr. Harper’s shoulders.

And third, the investigations into Conservative ethical lapses are exposing more and more illustrations of apparent Conservative corruption and incompetence

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Here's another reason the CONs are hot to trot for a general election: they don't want the taited meat scandal to be laid at the feet of Harper and his fellow CONnivers. Imagine, they are denying that their proposed new meat-inspection program has been implemented when in fact it has according to one federal inspector. I hope this becomes an election issue. This is one more nail in Harper's political coffin.

Hello Ralph: When you become our next Finance Minister, I hope you call every one of those bureaucratic twits that set you and Income Trusts up for this bull shit called Tax Leakage and fire every last one of the SOB's. To the last man and woman. Everybody that was involved in the file, while you were Finance Minister and since. And then, hopefully you can take care of that a-hole who is now the Governor of The Bank of Canada.

Vandals spray-painted the word "scum" in blood-red letters on the front wall of Frank Maine's Sherwood Drive home and lives were endangered when four vehicles had their brake lines cut overnight yesterday.

Maine was not the only Liberal party supporter whose property was stained with anti-Liberal graffiti, in what Guelph Police are calling "numerous cases of malicious damage and mischief incidents" throughout the city.

On top of brake lines being cut, two other vehicles had graffiti scratched into them.

At least 10 homes were attacked, including Maines' next-door neighbour and others in the northeast Guelph neighbourhood. Some homes in the city's south end where also struck.

It appears only residents with Liberal Frank Valeriote byelection signs on their lawns were victimized, and some graffiti was decidedly pro-New Democratic Party. NDP candidate Tom King angrily denounced the vandalism, and likened it to an act of hate. Valeriote called it "voter intimidation."

EVENTS

Income Trust Halloween VigilThanks to all who participated in both the Ottawa and Calgary vigils to mark the anniversary of the announcement.

WE"D LIKE SOME ANSWERS

As you well know, the ‘income trust thing’ has grown beyond the
question of whether fair taxes are paid on income from trusts. It’s
become a giant dirty snowball, and as it rolls forward it accumulates
more and more bulk. There are so many unanswered questions. Let's list a few and invite our "Accountable" government and our free press to provide some much-needed answers.

It is said “Trusts are inefficient use of capital. Why?” Two
related questions are ‘Whose money is it, anyway?’, and ‘Do Canadian
investors have a free and efficient market?’

How can information that is already in the public domain at SEDAR
make for a state secret? How could such information be used to harm
the Canadian national interest? And who would cause the harm?

Why won’t the Canadian media investigate the falsehoods and
misrepresentations told by the Minister of Finance to a committee of
Parliament? Was the Minister in contempt of Parliament?

Why won’t the Canadian media report (a) government tax revenues
gained from BCE in 2006 when BCE was a corporation to (b) government
tax revenues that would be gained in 2007 from BCE, if BCE had been
allowed to proceed to a trust, and (c) government tax revenues that
will be gained in 2007 from BCE, when BCE ownership has been carved
up as 45% foreign ownership and 55% large Canadian pension fund
ownership?